Zoku, a live-work concept that creates a new category in the hospitality industry, was selected as the grand prize winner of the 9th Annual Radical Innovation Award at the New Museum in New York City.
This year's finalists, Snoozebox and Zoku, presented their concepts to a live audience. Jury members posed questions designed to test the concept's feasibility of future development, and following this question and answer session, audience members voted for the idea they felt had the power to change the hotel industry. The creators of Zoku received the grand prize of $10,000 and the chance to have their idea further developed in the marketplace.
Facilitating global living and working for the travelling professional, Zoku creates a new category within the hotel industry. Japanese for family, tribe, or clan, it's a home-office hybrid, also suitable for long stays, with the services of a hotel and the social buzz of a thriving neighborhood. Zoku offers a home base with both a smart Zoku Loft (private areas) and social spaces (communal areas) to work, sleep, play and live in. Zoku was submitted by Hans Meyer and Marc Jongerius and designed by concrete.
"Zoku's vision of a home-office hybrid as a new type of extended hotel meets the market demand for a live/work space," commented John Hardy, CEO of The John Hardy Group and founder of the Radical Innovation Competition. "The audience saw the concept as one could make a difference in the hotel industry within the short-term."